


The Wonder of the Thing

by Prochytes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: There is no truth in masks.





	The Wonder of the Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Arrow to 7x07: “The Slabside Redemption”. Originally posted on LJ in 2018.

Dusk was stealing distinction from the view. The avenue of basswood below the Manor’s study, seeded, as the master of the house well knew, by slow labour in his grandfather’s time, had shed its last remnant of leaves a week before. Now, night had all but resolved the inky outlines of the trees into a general and accommodating black. A crack, as of thunder, sounded in the distance. He lowered the screen of his laptop, and raised his head. 

“I just updated my security systems,” he said, without looking around. 

“Yes. They were almost adequate.”

“How was Slabside?”

“It was the Inferno…”

“Apt, for one who calls herself a demon.”

“… but you, of course, would know that, having put me there.” She walked around into his field of view, blade and dark gaze alike unsheathed. “I have killed so many men, for so much less.”

“Yes. But I don’t kill.”

“I know. Such mercy is not in you.” She fingered a decanter of brandy, without lowering the sword. “Napoléon.”

“Yes.”

“Barrelled in the year when I was born.” She frowned. “You were expecting me.” 

“Call it an educated guess.”

“But why send me to Slabside, if you knew that I would only… Ah, I see. You deduced my debts to Diaz, and to Oliver Queen. You gambled that I would treat with the one; and then aid the other. The Green Arrow walks free; your hand, as ever, remains hidden.” Her shoulders slumped, as she sheathed her sword. “I thought that I had outlived the hope of surprising you, Detective.”

“You have always been able to surprise me. That is not a gift given to many.” He poured two generous measures of cognac from the decanter, and handed one to her. “How is your second protégé?”

“The Green Arrow is a great warrior, now. Greater than I.” She paused, with the tumbler at her lips. “Greater than you.”

“Are you trying to prick my ego, Talia?”

“That would not test an archer of my skill. It’s a large target, and one that rarely moves.” She drank, and set down the tumbler, as her gaze travelled around the room. “I have never visited your study. You do, indeed, have a bust of Pallas just above your chamber door. Is there anything of you that isn’t an allusion?”

“Very little.”

“So I recall. But the man I trained was not one to start at thunder.”

“There was no thunder,” he raised the lid of his laptop again, and briefly typed, “merely a sonic boom. The auditory profile suggests a speedster. Of the two presently active, one is unfamiliar with the configuration of the continental U.S. in this time-period, and wouldn’t trust herself at full pelt cross-country. The likelier bet is therefore Mr. Allen. His jaunts outside Central City are largely determined by gastronomic preferences, but it’s too late in the evening for a food run. An anomaly, then, which deserves attention.” He looked up. “You smile.”

“I never tire of watching your face as you read our world, Detective. If it only knew who weaves the thousand schemes that hang in its defence.” She pulled down a volume from the bookshelf; flipped through the pages; and read aloud: “ _He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organised._ ”

“An evocative description – though not, if memory serves, of a detective.”

“An accurate one. You have spun your darkness into light, while I… I saw a truth in masks that was not there.” 

Her head was bowed, now, over the book, the dark hair veiling the scarred face. He rose; crossed the room; took the volume gently from her hands; and replaced it on the shelves. For a time, they stood in silence. 

“Why are you here, Talia?” he said, at last.

She lifted her chin. “Perhaps to kill you, as you deserve.”

“We have both deserved many deaths, but not tonight. Why?”

She looked up at him from under her brows, hands folded behind her back – a posture he remembered from her tutelage, long ago. “I showed you the way of the mask, of hiving off the monster. You never followed it.”

“No. I saw you, your beauty and your skill and your mistake, and I…” He gestured at the room. The laptop hummed in its wan pool of light. “I did otherwise.”

“And now you are the unseen power that throws its shield before the justice-doer, while the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul has dwindled to a common thug.” Her mouth twisted. “You’ve been uncharacteristically slow to say that you were right.” 

He shrugged. “We were different, then. Less so, now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing,” he watched her face, “we are both orphans.”

Her brows lowered. “Do not speak of him.”

“I must. You raged for your father. You killed for him. But have you wept for him?”

Her eyes sought out his. “Did you, for yours?”

“Yes. If I hadn’t, if I had been so consumed… perhaps I would have become the monster of your devising. Perhaps I did, on those Earths beyond number young Mr. Allen plumbs. But not here.” He shook his head. “Weep for your father, Talia. You are more than he was.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, at last, she heaved a sigh.

“My student surpasses me, for the second time in a week. I find that trying.” She nodded. “Thank you.” 

He inclined his head. “My pleasure.”

“I will use the Lazarus waters no more. I thought I was their master, but I was not. Time calls me to the dance; it would be churlish to decline.” She touched a hand to her face. “I have deserved these scars.”

His fingers closed over hers. “You wear them well. Now, if you don’t mind…”

“Yes; I know. A world of justice to be nudged; I’ll not detain you.” She pressed against him, leather and steel and muscle and silk and sorrow, as she craned up for the kiss. “Until the next time, Detective.”

“Until then.”

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> Talia quotes from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem” (which also provides the title).


End file.
